Toho, the most famous of all
Japanese movie studios, first made its name in the West for the extraordinary
masterworks of Akira Kurosawa. But they really struck box office gold with the
wildly colorful kaiju eiga (monster movies) that began in 1954 with the original
Godzilla (Gojira), the creation of director Ishiro Honda and special effects
wizard Eiji Tsuburaya. Now for the first time on DVD -- and in their original
Tohoscope aspect ratios -- Sony Pictures presents three Honda classics that
display the enormous breadth of the Toho magic during its glory years. The
H-Man, Battle in Outer Space and Mothra are presented in both their Japanese and
U.S. versions. So travel back to the days before CGI, when special effects were
real and the results were spectacular!

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The
Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate:

H-Man

Bitrate:

Battle in Outer Space

Bitrate:

Mothra

Audio

DUB:
English (Dolby Digital 2.0), Japanese (Dolby Digital 2.0)

Subtitles

English,
None

Features

Release Information:Studio: Sony Pictures

Aspect Ratio:Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1

Edition Details:

• Commentary
on Battle in Outer Space by authors and Japanese sci-fi historians Steve
Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski
• Commentary
on DUBBED (English) Mothra by authors and Japanese sci-fi historians
Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski

DVD Release Date: August 18th, 2009Keep Case
Chapters: 28 X 3

Comments:

Okay, let's get right to it - the
packaging sucks - the three separate discs are stacked one on top of the
other (with no barrier) in a standard keep case. What this means is the
playing surface of two of the discs are touching the label side of
another. You must remove the entire stack to access the DVDs underneath.
I've only ever seen VCI Entertainment do this with a Film Noir set and I
find it a very poor way of presenting discs.

There
are 3 anamorphic DVDs transferred in the 2.35 aspect ratio. Each offers
the English (DUBBED and/or edited) version of the film and the original
Japanese. Battle in
Outer Space is
single-layered and an interlaced transfer. (NOTE: Our mistake: The bulk
of the feature, however, is encoded as progressive (starting
approximately 3 minutes in). On this disc both versions
are the same length and the only difference I can discern is the English
version is DUBBED but it appears to be the same film (with different
language opening and end credits). The H-Man
is on a dual-layered disc and is progressive. The English version is
edited (7:03 shorter). Mothra is
also on a dual-layered, progressive, DVD disc and the there is 9.5
minutes between the English and Japanese versions. Image quality is
imperfect with all sources looking dirty with some minor scratches and
speckles. Details is at the low end and colors are less faded than I was
anticipating. I don't suspect any boosting and essentially these films
are not in pristine digital condition but are watchable.

Audio
doesn't have any bumps and is all 2.0 channel for both original Japanese
and the humorously poor English DUBs. There are large white optional
English subtitles with no other language choices.

NOTE: We've had email
that some DVD players report subtitle issues with
Battle in Outer Space. The Japanese version subtitles are exactly
the same subtitles used on the English version and don't always fit as
well as they should.
(Thanks Peter for telling us!)

Extras
include a commentary on Battle in Outer Space by authors
and Japanese sci-fi historians Steve Ryfle (writer of Japan's
Favorite Mon-star - The Unauthorized Biography of Godzilla)
and Ed Godziszewski (Monsters
Are Attacking Tokyo!: The Incredible World of Japanese Fantasy Films).
They work well together and seem prepared and professional with plenty
of details about the film(s) and science-fiction in general. The
commentary can be accessed on both English or Japanese versions of
Battle in Outer
Space but the authoring does not offer subtitles for the
commentary. Battle in Outer Space is probably the worst of
the three films and, although frequently assumed, this NOT a sequel to
1957's
The Mysterians. The same pair do another commentary on the
DUBBED (English) Mothra only and likewise they do a good
job on this superior, better known, film. I appreciate the information
on Ishirô Hondo - the director of all three films and the boxset could
have even been labeled an Ishirô Hondo Collection, Vol. 1.
Thankfully the commentaries don't dissolve into the type of sarcasm you
see on Mystery Science Theater and the discussion is kept at an
informative level. There are also some previews on H-Man.

Thankfully the 2 commentaries add some value to the
collection. Stuart Galbraith IV may have been another solid choice. The
films are what you may have expected from Toho and Hondo from the late
50's and early 60's. I LOVE this type of cinema and really got into
these films - which I watched consecutively (all Japanese versions with
subs). It's a shame about the packaging and the single-layering of Battle in
Outer Space but overall I liked the package
and the films might be considered quintessential for this sub-genre. I
expect fans of this era of Japanese sci-fi will be very entertained
especially as I don't believe these have ever been released on DVD
before. Let's hope for more volumes and better packaging!